As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
An information handling system may include a power system including a rectifier for converting an alternating current (AC) voltage (e.g., as available from a public power grid) to a direct current (DC) voltage suitable for use by components of the information handling system. An example of such a rectifier, as is known in the art, is shown in FIG. 1. As shown in FIG. 1, a rectifier 100 may include two converter stages, a power factor correcting (PFC) AC/DC converter stage 102 and a DC/DC converter stage 104. PFC AC/DC converter stage 102 may have an associated PFC controller 106 configured to, based on an input current iin, a sinusoidal source voltage vin, and a bus voltage Vbus, shape the input current iin to have a sinusoidal waveform in-phase with the source voltage vin and to generate regulated DC bus voltage Vbus on bulk capacitor 108. In some embodiments, PFC AC/DC converter stage 102 may be implemented as an AC/DC converter using a boost converter topology. In turn, DC/DC converter stage 104 may convert bus voltage Vbus to a DC output voltage Vout under the control of a DC/DC controller 110 that controls DC/DC converter stage 104 based on output voltage Vout in order to maintain a regulated output voltage Vout.
The rectifier architecture of FIG. 1 may suffer from numerous disadvantages. First, the architecture often requires very high voltages (e.g., 380 volts or more) in order to realize power factor correction using boost type topologies. However, such high voltage renders it difficult to construct rectifiers having high energy efficiency.
Second, the architecture of rectifier 100 often operates with a dynamic imbalance of power between power Pin(t) delivered from PFC AC/DC converter stage 102 and power Po delivered to DC/DC converter stage 104. To illustrate, power Pin(t)=Vn×In×(1−cos 2ωt)/2, where Vn is the peak voltage of input voltage Vin is the peak current of input current iin, and ω is the angular frequency of input voltage vin. On the other hand, power Po is a constant, and capacitor 108 accommodates the power imbalance.
Third, because of this power imbalance, bus voltage Vbus may include an AC ripple voltage superimposed on its DC voltage vdc as shown in FIG. 3. In rectifier 100, the bus voltage Vbus may be given by the equation Vbus(t)=vdc−Po×sin 2ωt/(4ω×Cbulk×vdc), where Cbulk is the capacitance of capacitor 109.